


The Machinery of Night

by Bal3xicon



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 05:35:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8000455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bal3xicon/pseuds/Bal3xicon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abby and Raven meet twelve months before the hundred are sent to the ground. They meet at visitation each month, each carrying the weight of guilt and grief, each needing a hand to hold. Canon divergence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Machinery of Night

**Author's Note:**

> This will end up being several chapters, but I'm just keen to get people's take on this one before I continue. It will be a little while before I have a chance to post more as I have a couple of other fics to wrap up first.
> 
> Sere Cormac is an O/C - Yaya DaCosta is my dream cast for this one.

 

The small metal box Raven keeps in the panel beneath her bed houses four things. There’s no lock.

There’s the letter her father had written to her mother apologising for what he was about to do. Blue ink smeared on the page. Raven has only read it once.

Pages ripped from a book of poetry which may have been brought onto The Ark in its entirety 97 years ago, or perhaps the pages were brought alone. No cover to house them in.

A folded photograph of the grandmother she never met. The picture her grandfather taped to the underside of the bunk her mother slept on as a child. Sleeping alone below his daughter since she was three years old, he fixed the picture to the metal slats, falling asleep each night with the woman he loved staring back at him. Raven never met him, either.

Then there’s the wooden robot toy, hand painted. Blue and red. Fits in the palm of her hand now, elastic allowing it to move each limb. Sitting. Standing. At eight she had cradled the toy, broken and twisted, while she rubbed her hand in small circles on Finn’s back as she’d seen his mother do. While he cried she searched his living quarters, rifling through his mother’s drawer and his father’s shelves. She sat herself at a desk with all the tools she’d been able to find. Tweezers. Paper clip. Screwdriver. Elastic band. She hunched her shoulders and set about making things right.

She swore if she ever caught the kid who broke it hassling Finn again, or someone else, she’d punch him in the face. At six, Finn’s face lit up like his favourite story book character had come to life before his eyes, and he reached to take the robot from Raven’s hands. She’d been precise. Raven couldn’t remember ever having felt pride like that before.

Putting the items back into the box, one by one, Raven wishes she could see Finn’s face like that again, wishes she had anything to feel proud of. She lifts the panel to replace the box, but raises the metal lid again to retrieve the robot and her father’s letter. Slipping the robot into the pocket of her jacket and the note into her jeans, she closes the panel, and makes her way out of her room.

The echoes of souls long gone remain hidden.

Family.

Raven ran out of biology a long time ago. Ran out of a bloodline connection to the ground, to the people who had touched it with their hands a century ago. Before The Ark. Before siblings meant aunts and uncles and cousins. Before biology was restricted to families of three.

There’s been speculation in past weeks about a girl they found living in the floor. Her mother had given birth to her despite already having a boy, despite knowing of the restrictions. Despite the cost to her life and to the lives of those children. Raven’s heard the rumours. Countless versions of the story. Tortured. Crippled. Gifted. Raven has no way of knowing what to believe about the girl, but she knows the rumour about the mother being floated is true. That’s the way of the Ark. Something she knows all too well. Raven also believes stories that the girl has since been imprisoned. Nobody ever mentions the brother.

_Nobody_ has siblings on the Ark, where _nobody_ is _some people,_ and _sometimes_ means death. Finn, though. Raven walks the long corridor to the Skybox and tries to reason with the fact that Finn is more than family and less than a lover. What she can’t work out is why her chest has hurt every night since he’s been locked up. Raven knows she doesn’t share his feelings, doesn’t feel like she’s been drugged when he looks at her, doesn’t get weak at the knees. How do you classify love when you have nothing to equate it to? She doesn’t love Sere. She doesn’t love Kyle either. She’s felt high on both of them at times, but they’re both just fun to fuck.

The only time Raven’s heard the word uttered like a promise is from Finn’s lips, but when he kissed her it felt like breaking rules. It felt like betrayal. Raven lost part of herself in that kiss, but how do you reason with words and honesty when hearts are at stake? When she pulled away from Finn it wasn’t to catch her breath, it was to put space between them. Time and space. His face fell as only those of the heartbroken do. She can’t burnish the mark she left there now. The only way to do that is to be someone she’s not, and the space between who they are and who he wants them to be is as vast as the earth below them.

It’d be unfair to claim that she’s heartbroken too.

Raven walks towards the airlock doors which lead to Skybox Visitation, and balls up her fists inside the pockets of her jacket as she falls into formation. A long line of others reached the area first. In one fist Raven grips the robot, in the other the sensation of nails digging into skin is a distraction. She’ll count four arcs across that palm later on.

Visitation. Family members made to feel like criminals, meeting the young prisoners on the bottom floor of the Skybox. It’s heavily guarded. More so than the rest of the ark. Artificial light reflects off the floors above them. White. Grey. Red. Tiny rooms which house each prisoner, and Raven finds herself looking up, squinting in the harshness. She’s used to darker spaces. She prefers them.

Every face of every family member Raven sees reflects hers. Pain. Hope. She’s embarrassed by the way anticipation buzzes inside her veins. She can see it coursing through the others too. It makes her stomach turn. _We are all hopeless_.

“Are you okay there, honey?”

Raven looks to her left and sees a woman dragging her feet at the same pace as she is. They are in the same queue heading towards the same doors. Doctor Griffin’s face is marked with the same lines of apprehension as those around them, but there’s something in her eyes as she questions Raven, something like concern, which sees Raven draw her fists from her jacket and slide her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.

“I’m fine, it’s just my first time is all. You here to check on someone, Doc?”

“I wish that were the case-” the doctor hesitates, gesturing toward Raven, her mouth rounding on a name she can’t quite recall, her furrowed brow asking for the blank space to be filled. Please.

“I’m Raven.” They’ve met before, a while back. Physical for Zero-G. When they shake hands Raven is self-conscious about the state of hers having worked longer hours since Finn has been locked up. Callouses like she is older than nineteen. Grease stains engrained in creases.

“Of course. I wish that were the case, Raven, but I’m here to see my daughter. It’s my first time, too.”

The airlock ahead of them opens again and allows another group of people to enter. Raven is able to see visitors seated around the perimeter of the space. They face panels which form a barrier between them and their loved ones. As if the Skybox itself isn’t a big enough barrier. As if it doesn’t stop love in its tracks, daily.

Raven keeps walking.

She feels the doctor’s arm shoot across her body as she steps forward. Doctor Griffin strikes her in the chest before the doors close with force, mere inches from her face.

“Thank you.” Raven breathes. Folds her arms. Glances at the doctor out of the corner of her eye. A tight lipped smile reinforces her words as the doctor meets her gaze. “I’m sorry about your daughter. I still can’t believe they lock up little ones. I can’t imagine what that must be like.”

Raven tries to calculate the doctor’s age. She adds up the lines around the woman’s eyes, divides that by how soft her hands felt against her own, multiplies by the average age of the other Council members. Raven can’t do the math.

Pushing her shoulders back, the doctor measures time with a breath. It’s as practiced as the smile she offers up for Raven’s benefit. Pressing her hands against her hips, her fingernails likely causing indents to match the ones in Raven’s palm, the doctor turns to face her.

“She’s not so little anymore.” The doctor’s voice breaks and Raven can see her heart splintering inside her chest. _Wrecking her. Wrecking her. Wrecking her._ She bites down on her lower lip measuring out another breath before finishing in a tone which is barely audible. “She’ll be seventeen next month.”

The doctor swallows.  
  
Sadness and regret are consumed in equal portions.  
  
Hands still jammed in her back pockets, Raven finds herself emulating the woman. A guard approaches the doors and the sound of the airlock stops her from reaching out to place a hand on the doctor’s arm, turns their attention back to the room with too much white light. Raven can’t think of a single word to say. Scanning the doctor’s ID card, the guard gestures for her to walk to the right.

“Good luck.” Doctor Griffin whispers the words over her shoulder to Raven before being directed by a second guard to the far right hand corner of the room.

As Raven’s ID card is scanned, she feels someone grip her tightly by the elbow and walk her towards the opposite side of the room. She throws her arm back instinctively as she sits down, glaring at the guard and receiving a stern look from him in response. He’s barely older than she is. Turning away, she’s met with a smile from Finn on the other side of the panel.  
  
Finn.

Noticing the small gap at the base of the panel, she rests her hand flat against the bench and sees Finn move his to rest over the top. Glancing over her shoulder, Raven reaches into her pocket and produces the robot. She holds it between her thumb and index finger, flicks its legs forward, forcing it to sit, places it on the bench facing Finn. He grips her hand tighter in his. Raven struggles not to pull away. Struggles not to curl her hands into fists once more. Takes a moment to push her shoulders back, turns her feet to pull the chair legs closer to the bench, breathes as she saw the doctor do outside the room. Marking time.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Finn’s smile is resolute. If she focuses on that, not the look of adoration in his eyes, their thirty minutes will pass more rapidly.

She smiles. Nods through each suggestion and theory. Finn proposes ideas about the case he will put to the Council during his review in a year’s time. It’s consumed his waking hours. He has all the time in the world to think now.

Freedom.

Raven.

She can tell that’s all he allows in.

Raven feels cold. She hasn’t had much to do with the Council, knows little of their review process. She has known many young people locked up for crimes over the years, though. Nobody ever comes back.

She and Finn have vowed they would do anything for each other. Always. Raven feels as though she falls short on her end of the bargain. Always. Like they were never equal, like she was owing. Always. She offered favours as thank yous. Like her mother. And nothing like her mother.

Raven allows her eyes to meet Finn’s. She knows why he has always insisted they are even. Always done more. Never expected a thing from her. It’s either a lie or a misunderstanding, but floated or freed, she’ll never be able to repay Finn for everything he’s done for her. Not the way he wants her to.

He leaves her with a kiss pressed to his fingers. Their imprint fading from the glass partition as she picks up the robot, slips it into her pocket, says goodbye.

“Was that your boyfriend?” Doctor Griffin walks behind her. Their feet left-right in time until they stop. They wait on the inside of the heavy doors. The doctor’s words are whispered the same way her good luck had been half an hour before.

Secrets.

“Not exactly. He’d like to be, though, you know?”

Frowning, Abby nods her head. They’re ushered back through the airlock, share another tight lipped smile, as people do when they have only the very worst things in common, the type of understanding which further breeds regret. They whisper their goodbyes.

More secrets.

As she walks back to work, feet heavier inside her boots, the necklace Finn made her hangs like a solid weight around her neck. Unfurling her father’s letter, sharp creases marring words, ink faded where the lines meet in the centre, Raven reads over it as she rounds the corner to her corridor.

Both her parents had been activists, had campaigned for changes in Ark politics. His final move was one he knew would cost him his life. At least he was floated for something he believed in. Her mother had died because she no longer believed in anything at all.

If Finn is floated it’ll be because they were stupid. Raven rarely does anything without thinking it through, without weighing up the consequences, without calculating the risks. She ignored her head that day. _Logic. Time. Weight._   When he was arrested the numbers came back to her, created new algorithms, expressed themselves as powers which equalled guilt. And shame. And regret.

Raven plans to work four hours past dinner. To erase the image of Finn’s gaze from her mind. To give her hands a purpose. She presses in her passcode. She flinches despite the familiar sound of doors opening, wanders to where Kyle is scrawling formulas on the transparent panel above their shared work station. She pockets the letter.

“How was it?”

“How do you think it was?” Her tone is sharp. Razor blades he doesn’t deserve.

“Shit, sorry, dude. Did you find a way to tell him no can do?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to do that, Wick?” Her defences disappear. There is a plea in her voice she knows Kyle can’t answer for her. “How do you tell someone no when they don’t have a single other hope?”

Kyle caps the pen he’s been using, tosses it onto the table behind them, places his hands on her shoulders. He shifts his head to the side and waits for her to meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry everything got so fucked up. I’ll cover for you here, we only have an hour left. Go find a distraction. Go wear yourself out. I’d offer to help you out with that-” he pauses around a smirk, “- but you need to sleep tonight, dude. _I_ need you to sleep tonight. I need you awake in here when you’re on my team, okay?”

She’d been hoping for time alone. Time to work without having to talk. The pressure on her shoulder is firm though, grounding her in the way clenched fists normally would. The desk behind them is a mess. It’ll still be a mess in the morning. With little more than a nod she turns and walks the half dozen steps back to the door, banging the release switch with her fist as she approaches it. Striding out of the room, she doesn’t stop until she’s reached the hydraulics lab.

Raven presses the button on the intercom, waits for the static to capture Sere’s attention. Greeting Raven with a smirk, Sere presses the door release from the inside, ushers Raven around the corner behind a turbine.

Pressing Raven against the wall she leans forward, kisses her. Sere’s weight against her body is exactly what she needs. Not here though. Not like this. She concentrates on the feeling of the kiss and not the fact that kissing Sere makes sense in every way kissing Finn had not.

“When do you get off?” Now it is Raven’s turn to smirk.

Sere raises her eyebrows before craning her neck to check the clock in front of her work station.

“Twenty minutes. But…the…boss…just…left…”

Sere plays with those words. Draws them out as her fingers find their way under Raven’s tank top and towards her breasts. Wick had been right. Raven needs a distraction.

She grabs Sere’s hands from under her shirt, wraps them behind the woman’s back, holding her wrists together. She can feel Sere’s breath on her neck, turns to run her tongue over the shell of the woman’s ear, elicits a familiar reaction.

“See you in my room in twenty.”

Raven kisses Sere again, strides towards the door, presses the green button. Throwing a wink over her shoulder, she turns left and takes the long way back to her room.

Sere sneaks in a short while later like it’s four years ago and there are parents to care about. Like she has a secret she’s afraid to tell. But the minute the door to Raven’s room is closed, Sere leans back against it with a grin which Raven can’t help but reciprocate.

From Raven’s position on the bed, elbows resting on knees, neck craned to look up at the woman before her, she allows her eyes sweep over Sere’s body; legs and hips and breasts and neck and, _fuck_ , those lips. Moving further up the bed, Raven leans back on her elbows and crosses her legs at the ankles. Sere likes to put on a show. Raven’s always willing to spectate.

Reaching up, Sere pulls the elastic from her hair, black curls springing out to form a messy halo. She’s no fucking angel. Raven knows she’ll leave the glasses on. Raven insists. The lab coat is the next item to be discarded, followed by her shirt, her bra, her skirt. Dropping the articles, piece by piece, Sere stands before Raven wearing only her panties and those glasses, hands on hips. Raven licks her lips.

Sere walks to meet Raven’s feet at the end of the bed, takes Raven’s ankles in her hands, separates her legs, pushes them up as she comes to rest between them. Lowering her head, Sere takes the hem of Raven’s tank top between her teeth. She lingers. So fucking close. She grins, drags the top up over Raven’s breasts. The sensation of her coasting over hardened nipples causes curses to fall from Raven’s lips as Sere hovers, tickling, teasing.

Dropping the shirt from her teeth, Sere lets her hands do the rest of the work. She pulls Raven toward her, removes the tank top. Sere’s breasts are level with Raven’s eyes. Raven covers a nipple with her mouth before her own bra has a chance to hit the ground.

“Jesus, Raven. Nothing for two weeks and now this. We need to spend more time apart.”

It’s true. Prior to Raven’s belated birthday surprise, prior the kiss with Finn, prior to the stunt which sent him to lock up, they’d been marking time together. Counting beats.

Sometimes it’s fucking after work, falling asleep by accident. Other times Raven asks her to stay. It’s about warmth. It’s the physical pressure of someone else’s body resting against hers. It’s the late night conversations. It’s the early morning sex before a ten hour shift. It’s not being able to tell which of the two caused her muscles to ache more.

“I guess I’ve missed you.” She has, but it’s still not love. It doesn’t have to be. Neither of them have ever uttered the word. Neither of them mean it, nor want to.

Raven leans back on her elbows again, takes in everything Sere, feels herself growing wetter at the way the woman’s hips are grinding against her jeans. _Subtle_. She lays back against her pillow, reaches her hands to Sere’s waist, holds on firmly, rolls her own hips repeatedly. She watches Sere’s brow furrow and eyes close with each touch.

Raven pulls her down, bodies flush, rolls Sere onto her back before getting up off the bed to remove her jeans and underwear. Dropping her own panties to the floor, Raven tucks the tips of her fingers into the lace band of Sere’s, drags them down over the woman’s thighs. There.

Kneeling between Sere’s legs Raven leans down. She runs her tongue right through the woman, teases her, knows the way she’ll be kissed if Sere can taste herself on Raven’s tongue.

She isn’t wrong.  
  
Raven moves to get up, Sere reaches a hand down to the back of Raven’s head, applies pressure, keeps her in place. Smirking, Raven’s tongue follows the same path. Just once more. She moves up Sere’s body, is met first with a groan of frustration, then one of desire as they kiss.

Again, Sere applies pressure to the back of Raven’s head. This time Raven’s tongue is inside her mouth. When she sucks, Raven’s eyes roll back in her head and she rolls her hips. Again. And again. And again. Raven’s fingers travel down Sere’s body, but Sere has no more time for teasing, takes control, guides Raven inside her.

Sere isn’t the only woman Raven’s fucked, she’s the only one she’s been with for some time. When they’re together Raven’s sixteen again. Sere started a storm inside her the way some guys and girls had when she was younger, before she knew the kinds of ups and downs she’d felt her whole life could be suspended in the air above her, drifting and of no consequence as she lost herself inside those moments.

Emptiness came later, came when she would walk next door to Finn’s, came when she was forced to lie to his face, if force is the choice you make to delay hurt a little longer. She doesn’t let her mind go there this time. Finn’s no longer next door, no longer close enough that she’s certain he can smell the guilt on her every time she enters the room.

She moves her fingers inside Sere until she feels muscles clenching, inside and out. She has to cover the woman’s mouth with her hand to muffle the way _fuck_ mixes with _Raven_. Over and over again.

Raven sleeps.

Sere’s head rests on her shoulder for much of the night. The woman’s arm slung across Raven’s stomach. They wake to the vibration of Raven’s alarm on the desk. Sere pulls Raven back into bed placing languid kissed on her numb shoulder. Pins and needles tickle as it comes back to life.

She slept through the night. First time in two weeks. The ache in her shoulder all morning keeps a smile on her face, leaves Wick switching between amusement and jealousy in waves.

It’s only in the afternoon, forced to sit through a meeting with Wick and their superiors, that Raven grows bored and begins to toy with her necklace the way she always does. This time, the feeling of the metal bird between her fingers doesn’t offer any comfort. This time the very thought of it causes a churning in her gut. This time, when Sere stops by at the end of her shift and suggests an encore, Raven declines. She works past midnight. Doesn’t sleep at all.

 

* * *

 

Raven sees Doctor Griffin a month later, the two doing the walk again, the two shuffling ever closer to the room which houses the biggest parts of their heart. Raven is greeted by a smile which is all sincerity, and sympathy, and understanding. She resists an urge to hug the woman, settling for a smile herself, hoping it says the things the doctor needs to hear.

“What’s your friend’s name, Raven?”

“Finn. He’s more like a brother really.” The word feels foreign on her tongue, and on the Ark where nobody talks of brothers and sisters, Abby nods as though the distinction is clear, as if she too has people she loves with everything she is, her head, her heart, her soul, but who have no title attaching them to her. Something more than friends.

Maybe the doctor just recognises Finn’s name. She’s a Council member after all. Perhaps she knows of the boy who used more than his share, three months-worth of oxygen wasted on a spacewalk. Apparently. _Happy Birthday, Raven._ She turned 19 three months before, the walk delayed as they were required to sneak around between maintenance, between shifts. It was exhilarating. She’d never before had a reason to use that word in her life. But it was short lived.

“He’s exceptionally lucky to have you in his life, despite the way he feels. You know that, don’t you?”

“He wouldn’t even be in here if it weren’t for me, Doc.” Raven turns her body to face the airlock doors, her profile telling Abby that, _no_ , she does not agree he is lucky in any way. He’s ruining his life to save hers.

Abby is silent, and again they shuffle forward. Again standing as a pair, they wait for their turn to be allowed beyond the doors. There are two pairs ahead of them. Raven feels Abby reach out to squeeze her hand.

“Please, it’s Abby. He knows you would have done the same for him. I feel responsible for my Clarke’s situation, too. I really don’t know how we forgive ourselves for that.”

Raven squeezes Abby’s hand in her own, the only acknowledgement of the woman’s words. They stand in silence and Raven feels as though she is breaking. She doesn’t know if it’s the sucking release of the airlock in her ears, or the weight of responsibility in her heart. She feels the breath pulled from her lungs as she is ushered inside the only space she and the doctor have, now. Sharing time.

She sits through every visitation holding Finn’s hand. The gap in the partition two hands high. Raven tries not to flinch as he strokes his thumb across her skin. She sits the robot on the bench between them each time. Fixing things is what she does, but Raven doesn’t know how to repair any part of this.

The cold metal of the chair digs into her other hand as she curls it around the seat. She knows their half hours are something Finn counts down to for weeks. Thoughts of it filling the void canvas of his cell. For Raven, they feel like an afternoon shift, like she’s clock watching in the lead up, subtracting hours from the time she has left in her day. Minus eternity.

 

* * *

 

During Raven’s fourth visit, months after she had mentioned to Abby that Finn wanted to be more than what they were, she finally tells him they can’t be. He turned seventeen only two weeks before. He had organised a spacewalk to celebrate hers and she repays that by breaking his heart. _Happy fucking birthday, Finn_. He blames Wick and Sere, and everyone else she’s ever kissed, and Raven shakes her head through every word.

She wants to remind him how they started. Wants him to remember what she was running from at eight years old when his mother let her stay. She wants him to remember how his mother gave her three more nights in a row because she fixed the robot for him. Raven wants to ask him if he even knows when it was that she stayed the night with them again and then never left. They had top and tailed on Finn’s top bunk for months before his father found an old mattress and set it up for Raven in the space beneath his desk. She drew constellations and sketched invention ideas on the underside when her demons wouldn’t let her sleep.

Raven wants to ask Finn if he remembers the date her mother died. It was a Monday, but that’s all she has. On Tuesday, at sixteen, she moved back to the room next door. It smelled of moonshine and every mistake the woman had ever made, and Raven’s heart hurt, not because she was gone, but because of the time they lost in between. Her mother had been gone, in different ways, for years.

Finn slams a fist against the bench, drawing the attention of the other visitors, drawing the attention of the doctor. Raven looks around the room, turning her head to look over her shoulder. The concern on Abby’s face causes Raven’s throat to tighten. Both hands grip the chair as she turns back to face him.

She wants to say _remember when_? She wants to present him with a list of every great thing they’ve ever done together, show him all the things she’s fixed, prove that this is just a small glitch, one that she could fix like any other if he gives her time. But Finn is already on his feet.

“You let me believe, Raven…”

Finn doesn’t finish when he sees her shaking her head again, tears streaming down her cheeks. The blue and red of the robot blurs before her eyes and she slips it under the partition. He stands from his chair and raises his hand as though he is about to lift his fingers to his lips, leave a kiss smudging the glass as he’s done three times before. Instead, he pushes the robot back under the partition, walks away.

Raven expects a guard to accost her, tell her she has no right to stay. She folds into herself, crease after crease, her body against her knees, fingers interlocking behind her head, and lets the tears fall against her jeans. Her elbows pressed against her knees. Moments later, the hand she feels isn’t that of a guard.

Abby.

Taking Raven’s hand, the woman helps her from her seat and puts an arm across her shoulders. They walk toward the door as one.

They don’t stop walking until they reach the hospital wing. They keep walking to the mess hall. Abby pulls a chair out for Raven at a table in the far corner of the room. Disappears. Pressing her fingers to her eyelids, Raven wipes at tears, turns her body so she’s facing away from the others in the room. When the doctor returns she holds a tray with two coffees, steam curling into the air.

Placing the tray on the table between them, Abby takes a seat and reaches for Raven’s hand. Uncurling Raven’s fist, Abby places the robot in her palm and rests her hand over Raven’s fist.

Raven slips it back inside her pocket and forces her mouth into a smile even she doesn’t believe.

“Thanks, Doc.” She reaches for a coffee cup and holds it between her hands, relishing in the heat which radiates towards her skin.

“Abby, remember? Just call me Abby. Raven, we don’t have to talk about what just happened, but it’s okay if you want to.”

Raven puts the coffee down. Looking at Abby is hard. Her eyes are easy and her smile is kind and too much good has always frightened Raven. Things that make her feel.

“I broke his heart, Abby, not much more to say. I’m an asshole, and I’ve lost my best friend because of it.” She shrugs.

“You haven’t lost him Raven, he just needs some time. It had to happen. You did the right thing, telling him the truth.” Abby’s words are wrapped in tones which pull at the broken edges of Raven’s heart. Time. Truth.

“How can something right feel this fucked up?.”

 

Abby sits her cup back down on the tray between them, reaches to take Raven’s hands. Clasping Raven’s between her own, she waits until Raven looks up before speaking.

“Doing the right thing, even when you know the consequences may be terrible, is the bravest kind of decision.” There are tears in Abby’s eyes. Her jaw clenches. Raven wants to ask what pain she’s holding onto, what her decisions have cost her. Over time. Instead she lets the woman’s hands warm the parts of her which remember numb from years ago. She’s eight years old again.

Letting people in has never been high on Raven’s list of priorities. She tries her best not to avert her eyes as they speak. Abby needs this as much as she does. Raven allows the woman to continue to hold her hands.

“Do you have a Finn, Abby?” Their coffees grow cold as Raven explains how it was Finn and his parents who had been her family growing up. How her own mother couldn’t look after herself let alone a child. Didn’t have the capacity. Abby nods when Raven explains her father got himself floated. They talk about the changes Finn and Raven’s relationship have seen in recent years. His jealousy, despite their age difference. Boyfriends, girlfriends, casual lovers. The change in him she thought was acceptance. The change which was Finn falling further in love with her.

Raven wants him back. The boy next door. The one who slept by her side, woke her from nightmares. _Watching her father fall. Losing her mother the same way. Losing herself to the sky. Stars colliding, cutting her to pieces._ The boy who held her when he could have been sleeping. The boy who was her brother and her best-friend all rolled into one. And so much more. And nothing at all. And everything.

“Officer Cartwig and I have been friends our whole lives. I think of her as family, although our relationship has never been complicated in the same way yours and Finn’s is at present.” Abby sits, looking at their hands. Raven waits. Abby’s silence tells her there is more the woman wants to say.

“I suppose, in a way, Jake was also my Finn. My husband-”

Her voice fades, and Raven studies the woman’s face – her teeth having sunk into her lower lip as they had the first day she spoke of her daughter. There’s pain in love for her. Raven knows pain well.

“It’d be close to five months, right?” Raven ventures. She’d heard Jake Griffin had been floated after attempting to defy the Council. She has no idea if it’s out of line to bring it up, but Abby mentioned his name.

Nodding, Abby takes a breath. As she exhales, Raven feels Abby’s grief on the backs of her hands. Another measured breath. Abby is marking time, buying it, giving herself a moment to find her voice as if delivering the words without her usual strength will break not only her but Raven too.

“I’d known him all my life, too. We married young, had Clarke when we were only twenty and those first few years were the best version of bliss you can have in a place like this. I was the best version of me, then, too." Abby looks around them, the mess hall filling now as people’s shifts are ending and others are on break.

Raven’s life was already breaking apart in those years. Maybe they were both the best versions of themselves then. Raven tough as nails, full of hope. Now she wants to be tough, can say _hope_ in five different languages, doesn’t believe in it through any. Desespero, zetsubō, doute, xiànshí, hope _less_.

“You two were quite the power couple.” Abby breathes out a laugh at Raven’s words. “What, it’s true. A Council member who also happens to be the Senior Medical Officer, and an Officer who was the Senior Environmental Engineer? Power couple.”

Abby smiles at Raven across the table, but the sadness in her eyes doesn’t go unnoticed by Raven. It begun at her use of the past tense when referring to Jake. Were. Used to. Never again shall be.

“We were that.” The sting again, it pulls at her jaw like an unpleasant taste. “But it wasn’t what it looked like from the outside. It never is. It quickly became long work hours and arguments over who would be there to look after Clarke when we both had emergencies to attend to. I guess our last few years together were more an arrangement than a marriage. We loved each other, we loved Clarke, but we disagreed more than we agreed in the end.”

Raven squeezes Abby’s hands in lieu of words. Abby clears her throat and removes one hand to wipe her eyes before replacing it over the top of Raven’s. She has no idea how long they have been sitting like this, ignoring the comings and goings of those around them.  

“I’m six months off twenty myself, you know. I can’t imagine having a kid at that age.” Truth be told, Raven can’t imagine having children at any age. Too many memories of the conflict in her mother’s eyes, and the choice she made to put Raven second almost every time. Too many times she felt like a burden. And there she is right back at Finn. The only person who had ever made her feel like a gift.

“Is there someone else?” Abby pulls Raven from her daze and moves one hand, leaning her elbow on the table, propping up her chin. Talking about Jake has depleted her energy, draining her of the ability to sit up straight. Her posture suffers.

“I’m sorry?”

“Is there someone else, for you. I know you don’t share Finn’s feelings, but I guess I’m just wondering if its because you have feelings for someone else. It’s really none of my business though.” Abby removes her hands completely and Raven feels the heat disappear from her skin before the gesture switches off the warmth in her chest as well.

Wiping her palms on her jeans Abby then uses both hands to hold her head up, leaning closer to Raven as she does so. Raven follows suit, moving forward to lessen the gap. Elbows on the table. Palms face down. She leaves them only inches away from Abby’s arms. In case she changes her mind again.

Raven feels a different type of heat prickling at her cheeks at this. She doesn’t know why it feels important to maintain that contact with Abby. It’s become their thing in tough conversations in past months. At each lockup visitation. At the entry to the room. At their exit. The gesture replaces words, takes the space of the people whose hands and hearts they can’t hold.

“There’s more than one someone, if I’m honest. I guess there always has been.”

Abby’s eyes widen and Raven lets out a laugh, the first she’s felt brewing in so long. Abby’s face relaxes into a grin. The lines around her mouth returning by memory, framing her smile.

“I’m sorry if that shocks you. It’s really not as bad as it sounds. I just have a couple of people I spend time with, or _did_ at least. I guess I just could have answered your question with a _no_.”

It is Abby’s turn to laugh now. She throws her head back and places a hand to her chest before bringing it down to rest on Raven’s hands once again.

“You’re one of a kind, Raven Reyes, I’ll give you that. Tell me, are any of these someones people I would know?”

Raven smiles, shaking her head.

“Doubt it, they’re mech crew. Wick, Kyle Wick and Sere Cormac. They’re the people I used to spend the most time with, I guess.” Raven shrugs, a half smile at Abby’s amusement. Her heart stretching at the very same time.

“Oh, so that’s what we’re calling it now, eh? ‘Spending time’ with people?” Abby raises her hands, makes air quotes with her fingers, laughs again. Raven can’t believe the shift their conversation has taken. Traversed the very hardest, now their faces ache. A contrast in every way to the one inside their hearts.

“Call it what you like, but it was really not much more than that. I’ve never really done love, I guess.” Raven keeps her voice light despite the implication of her words, despite feeling as though she has revealed too much. Piece by precious broken piece between them on the table. Raven notices the shift in Abby’s eyes. Sunny to serious. Her smile gives less away.

“Love, is tricky to maintain. I think the most we can ask for are people who want to spend time with us, you know?” Abby folds her hands together on the table. She looks at Raven with the very same expression she had that first day. Kindness and concern.

Raven reaches forward, places her hands over Abby’s, feels the warmth travel through her, starting at her finger tips as if, between the two of them, they’re a closed circuit. Not much use on their own, but something when they’re together.

“Do you have anywhere else to be right now?” There’s a hint of red in Abby’s cheeks. Raven shakes her head, feels something akin to burning below the surface of her own.

“Good.” Abby smiles again, her eyes searching Raven's to make sure they’re in agreement. Whatever it is they’re agreeing to. Time.

Raven smiles, nods. Looking directly at Abby right now is too much. Too big. Too... She gazes out the window. A galaxy of stars against a backdrop of darkness. She thanks them for sending someone to take Finn’s place, even if there isn’t anyone to take hers for him.

Abby is a hand to hold. Someone to spend time with. Something to ground her.

**Author's Note:**

> Love to know your thoughts on this one.
> 
> Also, a big thank you to my beta, Shelby. Go follow her on tumblr (delevingne-robbie) or check out her vigilante!Raven fic (ShippingThings)


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